Robert Parker - Wilderness

Janet Newman sat on the floor in the middle of the canoe. Newman took the bow paddle, Hood the stern. The canoe moved out from the dock and turned east after the two rowboats. It was eight-thirty in the morning, the sun was up and shining in their eyes, skipping brightly off the water of the lake. There was no wind. The canoe went around a small point and the dock was out of sight. White oak and red maple pushed down close to the water, many had fallen in where the banks had eroded and given way. There was nothing alive in sight except the two rowboats ahead of them in the sun.

"We'll stay close to the shore," Hood said, "like we're just canoeing."

"Can we stay with them, paddling?" Janet said.

"Yeah," Hood said. "The outboards are only little ones. They're not going to leave us."

"Lake's not that big," Newman said.

"But there's an outlet," Hood said. "According to my map the ponds connect and there's access to the Saco River."

"So we could be in for a long trip," Janet said.

"If we have to trail them for long they'll get suspicious," Newman said.

Hood didn't say anything. The canoe moved easily in the water. Behind them something broke in the water. They could hear the splash. A loon dived between them and the outboards. The sun moved higher. Newman 'could feel the sweat begin to break on his forehead and the muscles starting to loosen. Hood guided the canoe easily. Newman was a strong paddle in the bow.

"Chris," Newman said. "What the hell did you mean, ''re running'?" "They're moving out," Hood said.

"But they aren't running from us, specifically. That is, there's nothing as far as they know chasing them."

"No. They weren't hurrying. They weren't running. It was just an expression."

A painted turtle slipped off a semi submerged log and hung motionless in the water, only its head exposed as the canoe passed. Hood guided the canoe out farther from the lake shore. In close the shore was thick with the snags of fallen timber. There were slick black branches just below the surface.

The packs and the long guns were on the floor of the canoe.

"We're going to run out of lake pretty soon," Newman said. The lake water was the color of strong tea. Looking down Newman could see swarms of fry moving below the eddy of his paddle. Janet Newman had the field glasses on the two rowboats. "They're turning," she said.

The two boats moved slowly in an arc to the left and moved at right angles to the east end of the lake shore.

"We'll keep paddling along the shoreline," Hood said. "If they keep going around the edge of the lake like that we can see them and we can cut across and catch up if we have to. This way it doesn't look like we're following them and we're still keeping them in sight." Hood wore a gray woolen shirt with the sleeves rolled up past the elbows, denim pants, and hiking boots. Newman had on a blue woolen shirt with the sleeves rolled, cream-colored corduroy pants, and hiking boots. They continued to paddle along the shoreline, slowly curving north.

The sun was almost straight overhead when Janet said, "They're landing." Hood and Newman let the canoe drift as they looked back and across the lake. The two boats were near shore, and they could make out one of the men wading ashore.

"The great big one has gotten out," Janet said, watching through the binoculars. "He's pulling both boats up onto a little beach."

As they drifted, the canoe paddles laid across the gunnels of the canoe, they watched the two rowboats across the lake empty. There were the same five people. Karl, his two sons, and Tate and Marriott.

"They each have a pack," Janet said. "And rifles. The packs are a lot larger than ours. They have, what are they called, pack boards

The five men walked away from the boats and into the woods.

"What now?" Newman said.

"We'll follow them," Hood said. "Let's paddle."

Both men dug the paddle blades hard into the water, turning their bodies, bending their backs. The canoe slid forward. As they paddled they fell into rhythm with each other, their bodies bending steadily and together, the paddles digging into the dark water. Newman felt the sweat running along his back. Cutting across the foot of the lake they were a hundred yards down-lake of the rowboats in half an hour.

"We'll go in here," Hood said, and turned the canoe into a cove. A single mink frog plopped off a stone into the water. Hood guided the canoe between two large rocks. Newman reached out and balanced the canoe with a hand on each rock and stepped out. He was in calf-deep water. He pulled the canoe through so that its forward third rested on the bank. Janet handed his rifle and pack to him, picked up her own and, carefully balancing in the half-steady canoe, came out after him and stepped ashore. Hood followed.

"Secure the canoe," he said. He leaned the Springfield against a tree and moved off into the woods at a silent trot; as he went he took out the.45 and thumbed back the hammer. Newman leaned his Winchester beside the Springfield. He took Janet's carbine and put it against the same rock. Then he and Janet pulled the canoe up onto the small beach of pebbles and coarse sand at the foot of the cut bank. Newman tied the bow to a black birch sapling with the mooring line.

Then each of them slipped on their knapsacks and waited, listening.

There were birds. They must have been in the woods all the time, but in the tense silence as they listened for danger Newman heard them as he had not before. He saw every flutter among the trees as possible danger, and his senses sharpened to them. He picked up the Winchester.

Janet held the carbine.

"Pull the bolt," he said.

It snicked loudly in the thick green shadows. Thick stands of white pine mingled with the oak and maple. He worked the lever on the Winchester. The sound was loud and metallic.

"Christ, you can hear that in Quebec," Newman said. He was whispering.

The birds moved in the trees, darting, fluttering, their voices in various pitches and speeds. He saw blue jays and once a grosbeak with a faint rosy blush on its breast. He heard what he thought from childhood memory was a catbird. The lake made motion noise as it eddied slightly against the small grainy beach.

A red-winged blackbird flashed across the brief opening between two trees. Newman jumped very slightly. Then he heard the sound of something larger moving through the woods. It was to his right. He turned, bringing the rifle up as something moved in the bushes. As he aimed he moved his body between Janet and the movement. He didn't know he was doing it. The movement clarified and Chris Hood came out of the woods. Newman exhaled and put his hand behind him and touched Janet.

Shit, he thought. I'm shielding her. He felt brave. / did it involuntarily. My instincts are good.

"They've moved out," Hood said. "There's a trail leads up from where they beached the boats, and they've followed it. Come on."

They followed him to the place where the boats were beached, empty, the motors tilted up.

"Do you know where they're going?" Janet said.

"Deeper into the woods," Hood said. "Look." He brought out a detailed map of the area. "I picked this up at the sporting goods store in town. We're about here, I figure. We were going east into the sunrise all morning and then we turned here, and I figure this is the cove we passed back there."

Newman looked at the map. "There's nothing but woods forever," he said.

"Then we have them this time," Janet said.

Newman looked up from the map.

Hood said, "Yes." Newman said, "You've got five armed men trapped in a thousand miles of woods. I'm not sure we've got them cornered."

"Help me with the boats," Hood said. He overturned one of them and with his hatchet chopped a hole in the bottom. "Do the other one," he said.